White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War (week 2)

Details

In 1794, with U.S. ships no longer under the protection of the British government and in response to attacks by Barbary pirates, the United States Congress passed a major piece of legislation, establishing a permanent standing Navy along with a commission for six frigates.

Many of the guidelines for the fledgling U.S. Navy were not formalized until years later, and in its earliest days, sailors were responsible for providing their own uniforms. This circumstance provides the central conceit of White-Jacket (1850), Melville's fictionalized account of his first-hand experience as an ordinary naval seaman aboard the U.S. frigate United States (designated the Neversink in the novel).

The narrator, joining the ship and anticipating the need to endure the storms around Cape Horn, fashions a coat for himself from the spare materials at hand. But the result--the titular white jacket--proves to be more of a curse than a blessing. His comic ordeal is arguably the funniest among all of Melville's long works.

Around mid-point, however, the novel shifts focus to the tyrannical abuses of officers' powers, with graphic descriptions of the horrors of corporal punishment and the appalling conditions to which seamen were subjected. The escalating conflict again takes its cue from the Navy's nominal dress code: specifically, its regulations concerning facial hair, culminating in what the narrator dubs "the rebellion of the beards."

White-Jacket is both critically acclaimed and historically significant. During a Congressional debate on the military's use of flogging, the original publisher (Harper & Bros.) provided members of Congress with copies of the work, helping to win political support for abolition of the practice. Moreover, "by making life aboard a man-of-war stand for life in the world at large, and by turning flogging into a symbol of man's inhumanity to man, [Melville] contributed to the escalating debate about slavery."

Note: This meetup will be recorded for private use.

Schedule: